Speaking for myself, and possibly myself alone, I don't want, and never will want, to live in an isolated shack in the woods; to drink loads of goats milk; to have the incredibly monotonous and boring diet that Dave seems to be advocating.

Furthermore (heresy alert!) I have seen with my own eyes that tillage, IF PROPERLY DONE, need not result in loss of topsoil - at least in the UK agricultural environment round me. Correct maintenance of field drainage, wide headlands, care of and reinstatement of hedges, care with ploughing (no fine tilth until planting/sowing), use of cover crops and so on.

It works. It seems to me that we have enough varied landscape and land use to maintain (in the UK) a decent variety of viable and interlocking ecosystems

Yep, friend of mine married into a farming family. The main plot they owned and farmed was really quite flat, but not actually flat. Fertilizers and water were significant expenses in running the farm and they were losing soil to drainage. Lou did some research, talked to some friends from college and got a high resolution survey. Based on that he instituted a laser guided grading and plowing program. The result was to rotate the furrows about 30 degrees with a slight curve and to install a series of small dams on the headers and the water and fertilizer expenses were cut by about 60% and the soil loss was cut to nil. Even got a slight increase in production.

OK well if you cannot see that rich vs. poor is a real issue when it comes to food choices, then there's no use discussing this any further. I'll just put you back in the "idiot box" and go on with my life.

OK well if you cannot see that rich vs. poor is a real issue when it comes to food choices, then there's no use discussing this any further. I'll just put you back in the "idiot box" and go on with my life.

sure I can see that. I can even have a reasonably sophisticated conversation about the economics of local vs non-local agriculture. But you can't start from your starting place.

Love is like a magic penny if you hold it tight you won't have any if you give it away you'll have so many they'll be rolling all over the floor

No, they aren't always right. But more often than not, they are. And an informed majority, particularly when it's over 80%, is almost always right. That's not to say there are not some exceptions, even some notable exceptions. But they are exceptions.

Another fine example of your difficulties with all, most, many, some, few and none. Why must it be all or none? Black or white?

Speaking for myself, and possibly myself alone, I don't want, and never will want, to live in an isolated shack in the woods; to drink loads of goats milk; to have the incredibly monotonous and boring diet that Dave seems to be advocating.

Furthermore (heresy alert!) I have seen with my own eyes that tillage, IF PROPERLY DONE, need not result in loss of topsoil - at least in the UK agricultural environment round me. Correct maintenance of field drainage, wide headlands, care of and reinstatement of hedges, care with ploughing (no fine tilth until planting/sowing), use of cover crops and so on.

It works. It seems to me that we have enough varied landscape and land use to maintain (in the UK) a decent variety of viable and interlocking ecosystems

Yep, friend of mine married into a farming family. The main plot they owned and farmed was really quite flat, but not actually flat. Fertilizers and water were significant expenses in running the farm and they were losing soil to drainage. Lou did some research, talked to some friends from college and got a high resolution survey. Based on that he instituted a laser guided grading and plowing program. The result was to rotate the furrows about 30 degrees with a slight curve and to install a series of small dams on the headers and the water and fertilizer expenses were cut by about 60% and the soil loss was cut to nil. Even got a slight increase in production.

Yup. Add to that the use of slow-release fertilisers (increasingly extracted from sewage, since phosphate sources are becoming limited) and you not only save even more on fertiliser, but hugely reduce run-off and hence eutrophication of water-courses. And of course, sensible farmers don't guess any more, but apply fertiliser following soil analysisin the 30 years I've been in this town, the improvement in local river and stream water quality has been fantastic. Clear, clean water, lots of variety of plants, fish, insects. And the otters are back!And this is because of economic imperatives - not just farming, but water resource management, recreation,tourism and co-operation between multiple interest groups to give us safe water, plenty of water-sport, reasonably priced food and a really rather pleasant local environment.Dave can fuck off with his narrow, grossly over-simplified, Dunning-Kruger "solutions", I'll work with the people who have shown they can maintain and even improve our environment despite the pressures on it.

I don't know why I enjoy trying to get people to understand things they don't want to understand.

But I do. So here goes again.

Does everyone here agree that we need to figure out how to feed ourselves with food systems that restore ecosystems instead of degrading them?

Is there anyone here does that does not agree with this basic idea?

Which aspect of the above statement? That we need to figure out how to feed ourselves with whatever or that we need to utilize food systems that restore ecosystems instead of degrading them? If the former, I am pretty sure most people would agree but would note we seem to be able to feed ourselves, even with wasting perhaps 40% of what we grow and using good land to grow a lot of stuff we really don't need. If the latter, I'm of the opinion that we pretty well already know what to do. It's just doing it. As to the urgency of the situation, meh. Agriculture is but one of many other massive ecosystem degradations. The runoff is probably the worst of it's ills and that can be mitigated fairly easily, using techniques I posted earlier, with significant reductions is expenses and possibly some increase in yield. That alone could well be the economic incentive to for farmers. Many of the techniques used in organic farming can be applied on larger scales. Not all, not most, but many. These can usually not only cut expenses but improve yields, either in volume or quality or both.

However, I don't believe it's necessary to have everyone doing their own little farms. Some folks like that work. Some don't. Some are good at it, some are not. Some folks do other things, often necessary things, better than they could ever do farming. I'd hate to lose a gifted surgeon, a marvelous teacher, a brilliant inventor, a fabulous musician, a great politician (yes, they do theoretically exist), an inspiring artist, an ingenious engineer, etc, to their having to spend their time growing their own food.

One of the many things Dave "forgot" is that if a few people are doing "Walter-style" farming in order to feed the many, it won't be sustainable indefinitely, even if Walter poops on site, because the other consumers of his produce won't.